Hey, I’m hoping to get some outside perspective because this situation has stuck with me way longer than I expected, and I want to understand it properly and finally move on.
I recently went through something that’s left me with a bit of emotional whiplash, and I’m curious if anyone else has dealt with something similar.
I started dating a guy and things moved quite fast, we were staying together every day, spending a lot of time together, having phone calls, messaging daily and bonded over things like dogs, movies, and shared values. He came across as emotionally aware and safe, and I ended up opening up to him about something really heavy in my life. I recently lost my mum to cancer and have been struggling with grief and my mental health.
He was incredibly supportive at the time. He’d say things like he had a “heart of gold,” that he hated liars/cheaters, and even said he was “proud” of me for going to therapy. He also made a point of saying he wouldn’t just “vanish” and that even if things didn’t work romantically, he’d still be there as a friend and that I could always text or call him. I found a lot of comfort and a sense of security in that cause I had really grown fond of him.
As things progressed though, I started to feel a bit of pressure in terms of pace. I still liked him, but I wasn’t moving as fast as he seemed to want to. I tried to communicate that in a message, not to end things, but to slow things down and find a better balance. While I started to feel this way I had a sense that he was already starting to be unsure and "check out"
He seemed to take the message as me losing interest or ending things and since I had a feeling he had already began checking out I didn't question it, I just said what i needed to and let it unfold naturally. There was a bit of distance after that. He suggested meeting up to talk, but I didn’t follow through on that because I felt I had said everything I needed to (which I can acknowledge probably didn’t help), and eventually we just… stopped talking. I was the last one to message, and when he didn’t reply, I left it and didn’t chase because I thought it was best to give space.
As I suspected he seemed to have shut down, so I left the ball in his court until about a month later, I went to message him again because I missed him and wanted to know how he and his dog were, and realised I’d been blocked on everything.
That part really threw me. Not just that things ended, but how no conversation, no closure, just gone, especially after saying he wouldn’t do that and him knowing the struggles I was having, I guess I naively thought he cared more than that.
I later found out (through socials/mutuals) that he’d started seeing someone else, and it wouldn't surprise me if he got straight onto pursuing that after the talk we had.
More recently, I found a work number in my phone history that he’d called me from once. I messaged it just asking who it was (I genuinely wasn’t 100% sure at first since there was no name). He replied with:
“I work for (company).”
Nothing else. No how are you, nothing.
Which just felt… bizarre and cold. My profile picture was visible, he knew exactly who I was. We’d spent weeks together, shared personal things, and he’d seen me at a really vulnerable time.
When I replied saying it was strange because we had calls in our history, he blocked me again.
That second block honestly hit even more, because it confirmed this is just how he handles things.
I just find it so strange because we left things on such good terms, or so I thought. He had promised not to vanish and that he'd still be there, that we can still meet up and be friends and see what happens.
I’ll be real, I know it was only about 4 weeks, and logically I can see we probably weren’t that compatible long-term. I can also acknowledge my side, I didn’t communicate my needs as clearly as I could have, I avoided the in-person conversation he suggested and I may have come across a bit mixed (liking him but needing space) when I started to feel the pace was a bit too fast, But even with that, I can’t fully reconcile how someone can go from:
daily contact/emotional openness/saying they’d be there for you to:
blocking you without a word/pretending you never happened
I think what’s stuck with me most is the feeling of thinking he would of handled things with more care. And when I think of our roles being reversed, based on how I felt about him I could have never handled things this way and been so cold.
It’s left me feeling really confused, rejected, replaced and as though I didn't mean enough to have the basic respect of a proper closure.
I’ve actually moved on and I’m seeing someone new now who treats me really well, so I’m not stuck on him in that sense there’s no romanric feelings left at all but the way this was handled still bothers me and makes me question whether any of it was even real.
Has anyone else experienced something like this, where someone basically “rebrands” and acts like you were nothing to them? And how do you stop the frustration of feeling like they “won” by being the one to block and avoid everything after making those kinds of promises?
Maybe I'm in the wrong and don't realise it?
Would really appreciate any perspective especially from people who’ve been on either side of something like this.